Nursery

The teaching staff in Nursery are:

Mrs Rachel Dudman (Head of Early Years)

 Mrs Fay Davies and Mrs Laura Gorman

Please follow the link- 'Who's Who?' - below if you would like to see pictures and the rest of our staff

Intent:

At Great Malvern Primary School we look to give our children a secure and confident introduction to their life and love of learning. We want to ensure that all pupils leave the Foundation Stage with both the skills and the aspirations necessary to develop as independent and excited learners, ready to pursue their own goals. 

We provide exciting environments, both inside and outside, to engage them in their learning, and encourage them in the EYFS 'Characteristics of Effective Learning'  

• playing and exploring
• active learning
• creating and thinking critically

All of which support our school values of:

• Be curious
• Be determined
• Be ambitious

Implementation:

At Great Malvern Primary School we implement:

• A carefully planned curriculum that develops understanding as they move through Foundation Stage, including real life experiences and the linking of prior learning.
• Quality interactions with all staff in all areas of the curriculum to encourage deeper learning and develop language to describe what we are doing.
• Environments and continuous provision that allows the children to develop ideas, practice skills and learn through play.
• Engagement with, and welcoming of families into our setting to share in their child's discovery of learning, and build partnerships that empower parents to support their children's learning.
• A phonics program that begins in Nursery, and is rigorously taught and tracked as they move through Reception to develop all into strong confident readers.
• Nurturing a love of reading through quality texts that underpin our curriculum, and regular opportunities for families to come and share that love of reading with us.
• Planned opportunities to engage with learning outside, both in our outdoor classroom, Forest School area as well as our playground and adventure play area.

Impact:

As a Great Malvern child , the impact of what we offer is shown in the way our children are happy, feel safe, and ready to come into school, with the understanding that their families work with us, and can share in their journey of learning.

They are engaged and interested in the opportunities we are offering them, and are motivated and excited to become lifelong learners, with the skills and aspirations they need to pursue their goals. 

They know there is a wide range of goals they can work towards, and are starting their path of understanding how they can achieve those goals.

They make good progress from their starting points, and each unique child is offered a broad curriculum that meets their needs.

Nursery's Focus Author is Nick Sharratt

Welcome to the second half of the Spring term!

This half term our theme is ‘All Aboard’ and our question we are thinking about as we learn is ‘What will we see?’ We start the half term thinking about and talking about a range of different transport, with buses, trains and cars. We are learning about where we might go, and what we would need to take with us, as well as thinking about how machines might work.  As you are out and about with your children chat to them about the different vehicles they can see, and what they notice. If at all possible, a trip on a bus or a train with photos to go on Tapestry for us to share would be amazing, and really help the children relate their learning to their experiences.

Having settled into our new location we are going to be going regularly to Forest School, and the children will need wellies to keep in school – please make sure these are named as we end up with lots of similar pairs!

Thursday 6^th March is World Book Day and we would love the children to come in in costume, with a book they love to share with the class. We will make that our ‘Stay and Read’ session this month, and the children will have a book token to take to get a free book from any bookshop.

Monday continues to be our PE day with Joel, our sports coach. Please can you make sure that the children come in Monday in comfortable clothes that they can do sports activities in, and a pair of trainers or school shoes.

These are the stories we are using as the starting point for our learning, and that the children may want to share with you.

We are enjoying using the outside classroom to develop our skills in creating and building, as well as exploring all that the hopefully warmer Spring brings. We will be developing our skills in counting and recognition of number – you can help your child at home by pointing out numbers you see around and about, and counting out how many plates, cups etc you need when making dinner, and in talking about patterns and shapes. We are working on rhyming words, and listening for sounds around us in the environment, as well as talking about the sounds our names begin with, and beginning to write and recognise familiar words, especially their names.

Our time in Forest School and on the adventure playground all build their strength and motor skills, and are often good places to retell stories we know (such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff over any bridges), or to use our imagination to pretend we are going on journeys, and use our language to talk about where we are going.

Our Nursery is now available full time (from 8.45 to 3.15) so ask if you would like to extend your child’s hours as they head towards Reception in September. Some parents are able to access 30 hours free rather than the 15 hours everyone is entitled to, and we have a table of charges for those who wish to pay for extra sessions.

As always, if you have any questions, come and chat to us before or after school.

Mrs Dudman

Welcome to our fantastic school Nursery!

Our school Nursery is an exciting, stimulating place for your child to develop an early thirst for knowledge and information.

We pride ourselves on creating a welcoming and encouraging environment where all of our children can flourish and thrive.

Our indoor space has been carefully arranged into different learning zones, where our children can further their existing skills and develop new ones.

We have our main carpet space where we listen to stories, talk about each day and do lots of thinking. This is also where we share our toast and milk and fruit during our day.

We have our focus tables where we do lots of activities in small groups and with adults.

Outside, we have a playground that we share with the Reception classes, sometimes we go out and play together, and other times we enjoy riding our bikes and scooters, playing with footballs and learning new skills outside. 

We also have our outside covered learning space where we can build, explore and develop our learning with our friends.

We have a small Forest School area just next to our playground, and we love to get muddy, learn about the world around us, and co-operate with our classmates to create games in nature. 

Our Nursery is situated in the main school as part of Early Years so sits alongside the Reception classrooms. Our Nursery children share outside space with the Reception children and will sometimes work alongside them during these times which makes transition into school really smooth.

The children have access to the whole school facilities including the hall which we use for indoor PE activities.

In Nursery, we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. This covers 7 main areas:

• Personal Social and Emotional Development.
• Physical Development
• Communication and Language
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

We cover these areas as practically as possible and with as much fun as we can!

We have a maximum number of 26 children at any one time.